Aug 29, 2009

This was only one piece of a 1995 Sega game that actually never got released (I can't imagine why). As part of Penn and Teller’s Smoke and Mirrors game, players had to pilot a bus through the desert from Tucson to Vegas. You have no passengers, and you can only go a maximum of 45 mph. And it’s real time. Even worse, the bus veers to the right just enough so that enterprising players can’t just tape the button down and go do something else for eight hours. If you do veer off the road, your bus gets towed back to Tucson… also in real time. The scenery never changes. And if you make it to Vegas, all you have to look forward to is the return trip. You will score exactly one point if you make the one-way trip.

Aug 24, 2009

This morning before work I completed my 4K run. I I ran it in 27'12'', without music. Just ran at my normal, static pace. The distance is actually more like 4.2km, and I felt I could have continued running for the remainder of the 5K at that pace. So now I feel confident that I could finish a 5K, I just have to get my pace set so I can meet my 30'00'' goal. Tomorrow it's a 3K at 155 BPM.

Aug 20, 2009

No, I'm not talking about Christian Ponder, FSU's starting quarterback. A little while ago, I published a blog about things to ponder. I received such an influx in mail from dedicated readers about these so-called "ponderisms" that I decided to do a follow-up post. (Are you buying it? You're not? What was the giveaway? Oh, I know - the 'dedicated readers' bit. Yeah, I thought that was a bit of a stretch!) Here are some more to add to the list...

Why do we say "slept like a baby" when babies only sleep 1 1/2 hours at a time?

Why do alarm clocks "go off" when they start making noise?

Why are they called marbles when they're made out of glass?How do you know when it's time to tune your bagpipes?

If practice makes perfect, and nobobody's perfect, then why practice?

Why do we put our suits in a garment bag and our garments in a suitcase?

When two airplanes almost collide why is it a "near miss"? Shouln't it be a "near hit"?

I know, style updates are becoming rather frequent around here, so maybe the exclamation point wasn't necessary. I decided that the last layout was too hip...I couldn't pull it off. So I switched to something a little more boring.

I've got a little bit of housekeeping to do, but the blog should be all cleaned up in the next few days. Enjoy!

Recently, I've started running more intensely every morning. I'm now running 3K at least three times a week, and my goal is to reach 5K. Let me stop for a sec because I know what you're thinking...what's with all this metric system mumbo jumbo? Well, it seems like runners like to measure things in meters, and I admit that "3K" sounds more impressive than "1.89 miles". So, I'm going to use the metric system. (Here's a quick primer: 1 mile = 1.61 km, and 1 km = .62 miles.)

My ultimate goal, (and what I'm training for), is to run in the 'Trots for Tots' 5K here in Panama City on November 14th. I'll be happy just to finish, but my target time is 30 minutes. That's 6 minutes per kilometer. Earlier this week, I was running the 3K at a pace of 6'30'' per kilometer.

I was thinking that if I could control my pace a little better, I could make the jump to 6'00''. Then I realized that if I could figure out what pace I ran at, I could create some music that had a slightly faster BPM and run to that! I thought I had a really great, unique idea until I did some online reading (dangerous, I know) and found that this idea is anything but new. I did find a chart on the run2rhythm website that really helped out by providing me with BPM time table conversions for different running speeds. To run 1K in 6'00'', I would need to run at 163 BPM. Sounds simple, right?

Well, I tried that. I created a 20-minute track and tried to run to it and failed miserably. The pace was way too intense - I could only match it one of two ways: either stand in place and rapidly pound my feet into the ground, or take a humongous stride and rely on gravity to pull me to the earth fast enough to stay on pace. Either way, it clearly wouldn't work for me.

So I tried slowing the song down to 160 BPM, and found that I was able to match it for most of the run, it just really wore me out. I timed myself and found that I ran the 3K in 16'57'', which averages out to 5'39" per km! According to the chart, my time per kilometer at 160 BPM should have been 7'00". I guess the chart is for someone with much shorter legs than me!

I plan on dropping the BPM down to 157 and trying again...I wasn't able to run the 160 BPM pace the whole time, and I was exhausted at the end. No chance of increasing distance at that pace. I think the 157 BPM will put me back around 6'00"/km, which is my goal, and I'm hoping to be able to steadily increase the distance from there.

I'm planning my first attempt at a 4K on Monday morning, so I'd like to get the pace established by then. If I can't get it worked out tomorrow, I'll chuck the headphones on Monday and just run at my natural, slower pace and work on nailing it down later next week. Wish me luck!

Jun 24, 2009

I recently noticed this on Facebook. I'm all for a positive self-image, but I have yet to create a fan page for myself. (Hmm...that gives me an idea!) Seriously though, I guess he's just trying to sell the image. In today's world, you've got to get noticed. But if he starts Twittering from the huddle, I'm going to be upset. (Though I admit it would be pretty cool!)

Jun 22, 2009

Last week, the social networking giant announced they were cutting 30% of their workforce due to the fact that they suck. OK, so they really pointed the finger at increased competition. (Woohoo! Go Facebook!) Hopefully society will learn the lesson (though it's doubtful) that individuals can't be trusted with fully-customizable layouts, text colors and background images. The urge to blind one's "friends" with horrendous, debilitating eye strain is just too great. Or, people have no understanding of visual style, readability or aesthetic comprehension.

Sadly, I never got the chance to take that quiz to determine my favorite vegetable or analyze the color and style of my toothbrush. And how am I supposed to wish Happy St Patrick's Day to someone without an oversized, animated, sparkling image of a dancing leprechaun?

Look out, folks! There's a ninja in the White House -- and it's Barack Obama. The president, irritated by a fly during a TV interview at the Executive Mansion last Tuesday, took matters into his own hands. Said Obama to the persistent fly: "Get out of here." But it didn't.

So Obama waited for the fly to settle, put his hand up and then smacked the fly dead in one try. Without missing a beat, the president said to CNBC correspondent John Harwood: "That was pretty impressive, wasn't it? I got the sucker." Best of all, the camera crew caught the action on tape.

Jun 17, 2009

Here are some awesome Star Wars-themed cakes. The Millennium Falcon above is a product of Cakes by Jyl. Pretty cool, and very detailed! Nice work, Jyl.

This R2-D2 cake was actually a wedding cake, and comes from 1886 Cafe and Bakery. The cake was the bride's idea, and here she is striking the famous "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi" pose:

This next cake is also a wedding cake. This scene of a fallen AT-AT in the Hoth snow is my personal favorite, and it also has some pretty fine detailing. The whole wedding was themed around Star Wars, and you can check out pics of the ceremony and guests here.

Jun 11, 2009

No, this isn't some mushy post about helping out Mother Earth -- it's about Rock-N-Roll!! I recently started a recycling program at work, and set up some boxes in our department to collect plastics for recycling. Today I was checking out the volume of bottles in my boxes, and saw some caps on a few Pepsi bottles that looked like the symbols from Rock Band (the drum set, guitar, bass and microphone). The cap had a promotional web addressand there was a code on the inside. There wasn't anything on the label at all.

I went to the address, logged in with my Yahoo! ID, and entered the codes. Once you enter a code, it's worth one point that you can use to enter a bunch of different contests. Well, instead of trying to win a trip to Vegas or an X-Box 360, I entered the "free Rock Band 2 song download" contest. I figured the odds would be a lot better of actually winning something. Apparently, any time you enter your point into the song contest you win, so I now have 5 song downloads! The reason it's not mentioned on the bottle is because it's a new contest - there's still like 90+ days remaining. Awesome! Free Rock Band 2 DLC, here I come!

And it doesn't stop there. There are MyCoke Rewards points, and Dr Pepper has some sort of contest going on right now, too.

Jun 9, 2009

Today I launched PlanetBizzle 2.0 in a desperate attempt to attract a fresh audience. Currently, my readership is comprised of a 31-year-old (OK, it's me) and sometimes my wife. So I decided to enhance the look, but stopped short of adding "Totally in your face" as a subtitle (I thought that would be too obvious). In case you're blind and someone is reading this to you, the blog looks much hipper than before. I also joined Twitter, and I'm fully planning on tweeting like crazy for the next 36-48 hours before getting bored/frustrated with posting and giving up on it altogether. There's a link on the sidebar if you care to follow the madness...I think my current tweet is "joined twitter". Yeah, I'm awesome.

May 18, 2009

Recently, my wife and I were chatting with some friends on Animal Crossing about texting abbreviations. You know, like BRB (be right back) and IDK (I don't know). We were trying to think of more obscure ones that the others may not know, so my wife thought it would be funny to type XYZ. Unfortunately, "typing" with the Wii remote means guiding your pointer to letters on a keyboard and pressing the A button. In her haste, she entered ZYZ and we both thought it was hilarious (yeah, we're a little nutty).

Ever since, I've been trying to work it in to emails and other online communications. Today, my supervisor and I were discussing something in IM and I closed the conversation with "ZYZ". She asked me if I was sleepy, and I said, "No, it means 'no problem, everything's good, forget about it'". She accepted my explanation, and thanked me for the intel. I expect she'll be using it herself soon, so I wanted to document the start of the world's next big text-phrase.

So join me in spreading the message online and in other standard forms of communication. ZYZ! ZYZ! ZYZ!

Apr 2, 2009

I recently told my boss that I would be willing to collect recyclable products (bottles, cans) from our area at work and take them to the recycling bins that I pass on the way home. Not only did she think it was a great idea, she made me Captain of Finance's Green Initiative. Pretty cool, right? Now I get to recruit some lieutenants and draft some plans. I'm going to insist that from now on, everyone at work call me "Captain Ben" - or at the very least, "Cap'n".

Apr 1, 2009

OK, OK - so my plan to post once a month failed, and I've only got one thing to say...April Fool's! HAHA! That was the most elaborate April Fool's blog joke ever! I totally fooled you all into thinking I was done posting...like I had disappeared off the face of the Earth or something! There were a lot of times in the last few months that I would have written, but I wanted the joke to seem real. Boo-ya!